Saratoga Springs police bust 18 in drug distribution network

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Over the past three months, Saratoga Springs police, with the help of the Drug Enforcement Agency and other neighboring agencies, have busted 18 people involved in a large-scale drug distribution network in the city.

The months-long investigation is still ongoing.

Since late December, police have conducted six separate raids and seized 245 bags of heroin, 4.5 ounces of cocaine, two ounces of crack-cocaine and three pounds of marijuana, as well as hydrocodone, oxycodone, suboxone (similar to methadone) and liquid PCP worth between $30,000 and $40,000 on the street.

Police also seized two vehicles and an undisclosed amount of cash.

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James R. Burns Jr., assistant special agent in charge at the DEA's Albany district office, said because the investigation is ongoing, it will likely lead to more arrests. He could not comment on the quantity of narcotics the particular drug ring allegedly moved through the city.

"It's some of the bigger dealers (in the city)," Saratoga Springs Police Lt. John Catone said.

More important, city police Investigator Tim Sicko said, "you are getting some very violent individuals off the street."

For instance, one of the alleged drug dealers arrested in March, Tyrone Abdul Dehoyos, has associations with the "Bloods" gang and has already served nine years in prison for attempting to murder a police officer in 1996, Catone said.

When Dehoyos was arrested, he was out on bail for an armed robbery charge, police said.

Catone, head of the city police department's Investigations Unit, has long maintained that Saratoga Springs has the same problems as any other city, and those problems include drugs.

He pointed to the 33 percent spike in burglaries and 10 percent spike in larcenies reported in the city last year.

"A lot of that was driven by drug addicts," Catone said.

Pasquale DeRubertis, the head agent on the Capital District DEA Narcotics Task Force, said that while Saratoga Springs may not be prone to violent crime, "with drug trafficking, the potential is always there."

In many ways, drug cases are always ongoing.

Catone said the latest bust was a spin-off of a 2011 investigation into cocaine distribution. In that case, 12 people were eventually arrested, including the so-called "kingpin," Robert Allen, who is now serving six years in prison.

"It always happens that way," DeRubertis said.

Both the Saratoga Springs Police Department and the Saratoga County District Attorney's Office have investigators on the task force. Though they are on local payrolls, they have the credentials of DEA agents.

Burns said the credentials give the agents latitude to follow the trail of drugs and money further and further up the supply chain.

He cited the Saratoga County bust in 2011 of Eric Canori, a Wilton man who had hundreds of pounds of marijuana delivered by trailers for further distribution. That case, Burns said, started with a traffic stop in Illinois and ended with the DEA making arrests in California and seizing property in Costa Rica.

Local officers enrolled in the DEA can follow a case anywhere, Burns said.

"The investigation can continue to the source's source, and the source's source's source," he said.

When particular members of the task force can't follow a lead, they have the resources of the national agency at their disposal.

Burns emphasized the importance of the relationship between local and national officials.

"We couldn't do this by ourselves," he said. "We count on the locals, who know who the local troublemakers are in Saratoga Springs."

In the most recent cases, word has already spread downstate through the narcotics enforcement network about the alleged suppliers in New York City, and the investigation is continuing in Saratoga Springs.

Law enforcement officials said many of the dealers are connected, even if the cases against them are not. Of all the drug arrests made in the city in the past two months, 16 were allegedly connected to the same drug ring and two were made as a result of the same investigation.

Like many drug cases, police say the crimes are not limited to a single jurisdiction, like Saratoga Springs. The men who are accused of dealing large quantities of cocaine in Saratoga Springs also are accused of dealing in Queensbury.

Catone said some of the people in this particular drug sweep have ties to a parallel narcotics investigation being conducted by the Saratoga County Sheriff's Department into the sale of crack-cocaine in Ballston Spa.

"We find that the drug world, while it seemingly has its tentacles into everywhere, is also a small world," Saratoga County District Attorney James A. Murphy III said.

Two assistant district attorneys in his office are devoted to drug and alcohol cases, which he said indicates "there is more drug activity in our county than there should be."

Murphy could not discuss the details of any of the recent Saratoga Springs arrests because they are still being prosecuted, but speaking generally of the charges filed by the Saratoga Springs Police Department, he said many of the offenders could face significant prison time.

"The drug dealers know if they are caught here and prosecuted here, they are going to serve long prison sentences," he said.

All of the law enforcement officials say word travels in the drug network, too.

When Catone and Sicko busted two alleged drug dealers in the case, Catone said he overheard the suspects arguing.

"One of them said, 'I told you we weren't supposed to go across the Twin Bridges,' " Catone said with a laugh. "You like to hear that."

Police ask anyone with information about drug dealing in Saratoga Springs to call 584-TIPS. Information can be called in anonymously, and rewards are offered for information that leads to an arrest.